British Columbia February 2014 – Coldest and Warmest

Using data from Environment Canada, these are the 25 coldest/warmest days in BC weather stations.

Something new I learned was that PUNTZI MOUNTAIN was a Pinetree Line base. While I was never anywhere near Puntzi Mountain, a long, long time ago I did spend 2 nights at the Kamloops Pinetree Line base. The “new” computer room was pretty big. The “old” computer room was massive.

I used to live in the Puntzi area. The average temperatures in the winter are mild compared to northern standards, but when it It gets cold, it can be as cold as anyone. Whitehorse, Yellowknife, and Fort Nelson have never been as cold as Puntzi Mountain has, and Puntzi has a shorter period of record than those other places. Puntzi has been the Province’s cold spot 3 of the past 8 years, which is more than anyone else.Fort Nelson is 2nd by managing the yearly cold spot two times. Since records began in 1968, Puntzi has gotten down to -63 F (-52.8C), but people who were there in 1950 say that their backyard thermometer recorded -70F. This is likely colder than an official temperature would have been, but given the fact that 1950 was colder than 1968, it is safe to say that it can get down to about -55C in Puntzi.

Anyway, the cold snap early last month hit the Cariboo-Chilcotin harder than the rest of the country.. Notice that most of the places on the list are in the Cariboo or Central Interior area (Puntzi, Burns Lake, Buffalo Lake, Clinton, and Blue River). Puntzi was the coldest spot in Canada 2 of the 3 coldest days on the list.

Oh, and in typical Environment Canada fashion, they have errors. For example, Nelson did not hit -40. Gotta love EC. Notice that they stopped performing quality control checks on most weather stations in 2007.

One other interesting note about Puntzi is that the weather station has been glitching since mid December by recording a couple mm of precipitation almost every day even when it was -40 and clear as a bell. The temperatures are not glitching, however.